Green Packaging and Communication : The Implications of Bring-Your-Own-Container

Problem Definition: A growing eco-trend among eco-conscious consumers is ``Bring-Your-Own-Container" (BYOC), where consumers take their own reusable packaging to buy and consume products to reduce the waste of single-use packaging. In this paper, we study the impacts of BYOC on a firm's packaging and communication decisions.Methodology/Results: We build a stylized model to study a firm's packaging choice and communication decisions and their implications on the environment. Our main results follow. First, the increasing popularity of BYOC among eco-conscious consumers may reduce the incentive for a firm to make fraudulent green claims about its disposable product packaging and thus help prevent the greenwashing phenomenon. Second, when a firm chooses to offer green disposable packaging, it may not be profitable to adopt a credible third-party certification to disclose the packaging's environmental quality, even if the certification is costless. Third, from an environmental perspective, it is not always wise for the government to require firms to have their green claims verified by a third party; such regulation can help eliminate the greenwashing phenomenon in the market, but it may also cause a negative impact on the environment given the BYOC trend. Finally, when a firm begins to offer reusable packaging (in place of the traditional disposable packaging), consumers need to return the container after each time of use for cleaning, and we find that a more convenient return process may not always improve the firm's profit.Managerial Implications: We provide operational insights on how firms should make green packaging and communication decisions in the presence of the BYOC trend. We also generate insights on how governments should regulate firms' green claims